Batu Caves – My Visit To

Batu Caves

My visit to the famous Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The beautiful architecture, the marvelous statues, the cave itself, all the monkeys wrecking havoc and the atmosphere is just amazing at the right times. It is well worth a visit for anyone passing through Kuala Lumpur.

What is it

“Batu Caves is a limestone hill that has a series of caves and cave temples in Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia. It takes its name from the Sungai Batu (Batu River), which flows past the hill and also it is the tenth (Pattu in Tamil) limestone hill from Ampang. Batu Caves is also the name of a nearby village.

The cave is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, and is dedicated to Lord Murugan. It is the focal point of Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia.

Batu Caves in short also referred as 10th Caves or Hill for Lord Muruga as there are six important holy shrines in India and four more in Malaysia. The three others in Malaysia are Kallumalai Temple in Ipoh, Tanneermalai Temple in Penang and Sannasimalai Temple in Melacca.

It is also near a town called Selayang where the famous and biggest wholesale market in Klang Valley located.

A 42.7-metre (140 ft) high statue of Lord Murugan was unveiled in January 2006, having taken 3 years to construct. It is the tallest Lord Murugan statue in the world.”
From: Wikipedia

How to get there

Super easy: Take a taxi.

Easy: Take the train.

Everyone in Kuala Lumpur knows where it is so you can always ask for directions. I would take the train any day because it is cheaper and depending on where you are it probably is a lot quicker as well. It has its own line from KL Sentral Station so it is really easy to get to.

My Visit

Walking out of the train station especially built for this beautiful place you soon spot the entrance. Outside you will see vendors but they are not pushy at all. As they tend to be in Thailand or even in Kuala Lumpurs own Chinatown.

Once through the gates I immediately sawa small temple up some steps, no shoes allowed! If you come here at the right, or wrong time, depending on if you like monkeys or not, time you will see many monkeys roaming the area. It is pretty awesome to be honest. Warning, pack your hat in a bag or backpack to not tempt them too permanently borrow it from you.

After the first small temple that has a few statues and really awesome paintings you walk towards the caves. First you pass by a big fishpond with many fishes, some of them are bright orange but most of them were gray and colorless. Still the architecture is quite amazing.

So then, after walking by a few more vendors I turn left and the first thing I noticed was the gigantic golden statue besides the many, many, steps of stairs. Two thoughts popped up at the same time: “Wow this is amazingly beautiful.” and “Sh1t I am gonna have to walk those steps aren’t I?!”. Yup. So I make my way towards the stairs after a bit of staring at the statue. At the bottom of the stairs you will have to pay to borrow a pair of pants if you don’t have clothes that goes beneath your knees.

Then I had no choice anymore, I had to get up the stairs. It was hot as hell and kept looking up wondering what in the shit have I gotten myself into? But it was actually kind of an easy walk, when I was there some people were jogging up and down the stairs, crazy or healthy… I just don’t know, maybe both.

During my visit the steps were full of monkeys and I often stopped to admire them. Some were playing with a dog, or well the dog was chasing them and they were chasing the dog back and forth.

Finally I reached the top of the stairs and turned around to be greeted by a lovely view of the city, even despite the haze.. BTW thanks for that Indonesia.

After admiring the view for quite some time I headed into the cave and it is amazingly beautiful with many statues, shrines and at least two temples. The cave is not gigantic but it is big and the opening inside is incredibly beautiful.

After walking around in awe for a bit I headed our with my mind set on taking the dark cave tour but unfortunately for me it just closed so I had no choice but to walk down the stairs again.

That was pretty much it, I really enjoyed my visit to Batu Caves and I ended up going there two if not even three times.